"On deck, there!" shouted out the lookout-man again, almost before the
sound of Lieutenant Dabchick's last yawn had died away in the distance,
like a groan or its echo. "There's a whole fleet o' dhows a-creeping up
under the lee of the land and running before the wind to the north'ard,
sir!"
This stopped Mr Dabchick's yawns and made him open his sleepy eyes
pretty wide, I can tell you!
"A fleet of dhows, lookout-man!" he cried, fully awake at last, not only
in his own person, but as regarded the responsibility attaching to him
should he unhappily let our prey escape and so foil his captain's
carefully arranged plan. "Are you certain, Adams?"
"Not a doubt of it, sir," replied the captain of the foretop, in an
assured tone that expressed his confidence in his own statement.
"They're Arab dhows sure enough, sir. One--two--three; and, ay, there
is two more on 'em jist rounding the p'int--that makes five on 'em, sir,
all bearing to the north as fast as they can go, with slack sheets and
the breeze dead astern, which they are bringing up with them. They're
right off our weather beam, now, sir."
"The devil!" ejaculated Lieutenant Dabchick, in his flurry using a
stronger expression than he would probably have done had `old Hankey
Pankey' been on the quarter-deck, rushing into the chart-house on the
bridge and snatching up a telescope, which he brought to bear on the
horizon in the direction indicated by Adams in the foretop above, whose
point of vantage, of course, gave him a wider range of view. "On our
weather beam, you say?"
"Ay, ay, sir," roared back the lookout; "they're right abreast of our
forrud funnel now, sir."
Mr Dabchick's hand shook so much from excitement that he could not hold
the glass steady; so, propping it up athwart the stanchion at the
weather end of the bridge, and sprawling out his legs to give him a good
purchase, he worked the telescope about till he at last spotted the
objects Adams had seen.
"By the Lord Harry!" exclaimed the lieutenant, "you are right, Adams. I
must send down and tell the captain at once."
With that, he hailed the midshipman of the watch and despatched him with
the news to Captain Hankey's cabin aft; while at the same time he rang
the engine-room gong, and shouted down through the voice-tube to tell
them below to `stand by,' as probably we would want steam up in a very
short time; directing also the coxswains of the boats alongside to make
ready, as well as passing the word forward for the boatswain's mates and
the drummer and bugler to be handy when wanted.
This done, all his orders having been issued and executed in less time
than I take to tell of it, Mr Dabchick resumed his interrupted, if
monotonous, task of walking up and down the bridge; stopping whenever he
had to slew round, at the end of his promenade, to take another squint
at the dhows, and warning Adams, though that worthy needed no such
injunction, to `keep his eye on them.'
Mr Dabchick had just sung out this for the second time on getting back
to the weather end of the bridge, when Captain Hankey, accompanied by
Mr Gresham and a lot of the other officers, rushed on deck, some of
them half dressed and buckling on their gear as they came hurrying
along.
`Old Hankey Pankey' made straight for the bridge, the first lieutenant
close at his heels.
"Ha, Mr Dabchick," cried the captain, as he skated up the iron ladder
leading from the deck below to the chart-house, taking three steps at
each bound, "so you've sighted those beggars at last, eh?"
"Yes, sir," said the second lieutenant, smiling, and rubbing his hands,
having put down his telescope on top of the movable slab on the bridge
the navigator had for spreading out his charts; Mr Dabchick assuming an
air of great complacency, as if it were entirely through his exertions
the dhows had been seen or were there at all--"I think you'll find 'em
there to win'ard all right, sir."
`Old Hankey Pankey' caught up the telescope that Mr Dabchick had just
deposited on the slab, putting it to his eye.
"Yes, they are dhows sure enough, Gresham," he said to the first
lieutenant, after a brief inspection of the craft, which were stealing
past us under the loom of the land far away to the westward. "No doubt,
they are the very rascals who plundered the wreck we saw yesterday, and
as likely as not murdered all the people on board! They are making for
the same spot again, too, to pick up the rest of the loot they have not
yet taken off; but we'll stop their little game. Bugler, sound the
`assembly'! Drummer, beat to `quarters'!"
The blare of bugle and beat of drum rang through the ship, mingled with
the hiss and roar of the steam rushing up the funnels; the captain, as
he sang out his orders to those on deck, mechanically, from force of
habit, putting his hand on the engine-room telegraph to prepare the
`greasers' in the flat below, and rapidly shouting down the voice-tube,
as soon as the electric bell on the bridge gave a responsive tinkle,
that they were to `get up steam' as quickly as possible.
But, there was no fear of our alarming the enemy with the noise of our
preparations, not even when the boatswain's mates added their quota to
the din after the bugle was sounded. They were too far off, and,
besides, we were to leeward, and twice the row we made could not have
reached their ears.
All of our fellows below belonging to the port watch came tumbling up
the hatchways in a jiffy on hearing the `assembly,' clutching up their
rifles and sword-bayonets from the arm-racks on the lower deck; while we
of the starboard, who were already up from having the middle watch,
proceeded at a break-neck pace to fetch ours.
Then the gunner took his keys from their appointed place outside the
door of the captain's cabin and went below to open the magazines in the
flat appropriated to their combustible contents, in company with a
working party to attend to the ammunition hoists; while the marine
artillerymen and crews of the main-deck battery and upper-deck machine-
guns hurried to their stations under charge of "Gunnery Jack," the
lieutenant whose special function was to see to our little barkers.
A minute later, when those whose duties did not take them elsewhere were
ranged along the upper deck, Captain Hankey, who had gone down to his
cabin in the meantime and buckled on his sword to be in proper fighting
rig, came back on the bridge, where he remained in conversation with Mr
Gresham until the `orderly' midshipman--I don't mean to say that the
others were disorderly, but only just wish to specify those who were
told off to carry messages from the various parts of the ship, when at
`quarters,' to the captain, they acting, so to speak, as his aides-de-
camp on board--returned to say all was as it should be.
"Now then, Gresham," said `old Hankey Pankey,' drawing himself up to his
full height, and looking every inch what he was, an officer and a
gentleman--ay, and a sailor too, as plucky as they make them--"I think
we'd better begin, or those beggars will get too far ahead, and a stern
chase, you know, is a long chase. Bugler, sound `man and arm boats'!"
The boy, a young marine, who did this part of our musical business,
puffed out his cheeks, inflating his lungs the while, and blew a blast
that seemed to make the air shake; the boatswain's mates, who always act
on such occasions like the chorus at the opera, screeching with their
whistles fore and aft up and down the hatchways, repeating with an
exasperating repetition the same order little Joey the bugler had
already given; while, all the officers who had charge of the respective
boats stood up at the gangways to inspect the crews of these as they
went down the side to take their places on the thwarts, so as to see
they were all properly equipped.
"Mr Gresham," said Captain Hankey to the first lieutenant, "I should
like you to go in the steam pinnace and work away to win'ard towards Ras
Hafim--you know the place we marked on the chart last night above
Binna?"
"Very good, sir," replied Mr Gresham, taking up a revolver and box of
cartridges he had brought on deck with him, and going towards the after
gangway, abreast of which the steam pinnace was lying, buzzing away like
a little wasp alongside; the intimation on the part of our captain that
he would `like' a thing being done being quite equivalent to a command
to do it! "You mean, sir, that queer-shaped headland some twenty miles
down the coast?"
"Yes, we passed it when we came back from the wreck," replied `old
Hankey Pankey,' pointing with his hand away to windward. "You will then
cut off the retreat of the dhows, while we head them off farther up the
coast."
"Very good, sir," said Mr Gresham, accepting this as a final dismissal.
"I will attend to your orders, sir. By George, those Arabs will have
to be precious sharp if they manage to steal back past us to their
haunts!"
So saying, Mr Gresham went down the side, without any further palaver;
and, when he was seated in the sternsheets, the pinnace went off in a
bee-line to the sou'-west in the teeth of the monsoon, which was
beginning to blow now pretty briskly.
The first cutter was then piped away, Larrikins and I being the two
first to jump aboard her when the bowman laid hold of her painter and
drew her up alongside.
Lieutenant Dabchick came with us in command, as soon as she was fully
manned and armed, an ammunition-chest being lowered down with a supply
of `pills and pepper' for the little nine-pounder boat-gun we carried in
our bows; when, we sheered away from the ship's side and lay on our
oars, and the second cutter hauled up alongside to receive her crew and
equipment like ourselves.
This did not take long in doing--the whaler being also manned and the
senior midshipman sent in charge of her, with the boatswain to check his
rashness; and then, the three of us, first cutter, second cutter and
whaler, were all taken in tow by the _Mermaid_, which went off full
speed ahead after the Arab dhows that were now only some five miles off
us, the cruiser shaping a slanting course so as to prevent them from
making for the wide stretch of open water that lay to the north'ard,
should they try to escape in that way.
Their retreat to the port whence they had sailed was cut off by the
pinnace; and, as their only refuge now when we overhauled them would be
the rock-bound coast lying between Binna and Ras Hafim, they were, as I
heard Mr Dabchick say to the coxswain, `between the devil and the deep
sea!'
The reckless beggars, too, were so busy looking out in the direction of
the stranded steamer for which they were making, that somehow or other
they did not catch sight of us until they were nearly within easy range
of our six-inch breechloaders; the leading dhow, which was what the
Arabs call a `batilla,' and carried two large lugs or lateen sails on
wide yards, besides a sort of square jib forwards, rigged out on a
bowsprit like a spritsail boom, caught sight of us as we luffed up to
let fly at her.
For a second or two they seemed all of a heap, like a covey of
frightened partridges; and then, getting their tacks aboard as smartly
as if they were English seamen and not rascally Somali Arabs, they
hauled their wind and made in for the shore, thinking, no doubt, `Old
Nick' was after them.
They were not far out in this surmise, if such should have crossed their
minds, as they very quickly found out.
The _Mermaid_ yawed off her course, swirling us round in her wake as our
tow-rope slackened and then grew taut again, all in an instant; and,
then, bang belched out one of our big hundred-pounder quick-firing guns
that we carried on the upper deck fore and aft, pitching a shell that
burst right over the rearmost dhow.
This made them quicken their movements if possible; while `old Hankey
Pankey,' seeing we were a trifle short in our range, steamed on after
them so that they might have the full benefit of all our battery--the
water now churning up over the gunwale of the cutter as she dragged us
on astern of her, the bow of the boat high in air, while we were all the
more depressed aft from having the other boats behind us.
On flew the dhows, on raced the _Mermaid_, flopping her tail as
represented by the boats in tow, for we did wag about pretty
considerably, as one of our men who was half a Yankee said; until,
presently, on the water showing signs of shoaling, the _Mermaid_ brought
up broadside on and began pitching shot and shell as fast as the men
could work her batteries at the dhows, which were now well inshore and
almost on the rocks--which latter seemed to jut out from this coast in
the most shapeless, uncanny fashion, like the solitary tusk or two still
possessed by some nearly toothless old hag.
`Bang, smash, boom!' went our guns, the fire bursting forth from the
ship's side in the centre of puff-balls of smoke, accompanied by the
hurtling sound of the shot through the air, and the dull intonation the
shell gave out after the first report, when these missiles discharged
their contents around their target. `Bang, smash, boom!'
It must have been pretty lively for the Arabs: too warm after a bit to
be pleasant!
So `old Hankey Pankey' appeared to think; and, when our guns had fired
about a couple of rounds each all round, the bugle sounded the `cease
fire,' and he came aft and hailed us.
"Mr Dabchick," he called out, "I'm going to cast you off, and you will
pull straight for the shore and capture those dhows as best you can,
while I will cover your advance with the guns of the ship. Recollect,
you are in command of the expedition and that Mr Doyle in the cutter,
and Mr Chisholm in the whaler, are under your orders; so, you can do as
you think best when you get alongside them. I would divide my forces,
Dabchick, if I were you; but, you must exercise your own judgment when
the time comes!"
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the lieutenant, as heartily as if he had just
been told he was made `first luff' of the flagship--for, though sleepy
sometimes when on watch of a night, he was a plucky little chap, with a
lot of go in him; and then, as our painter was sent adrift and the slack
hauled in by the bowmen, he sang out to us, "Oars! Off we go, my lads!"
This was the signal for a ringing cheer from all hands in our boat, as
well as from those in the second cutter and whaler, which had been
likewise cast off from the tow-rope; while `old Hankey Pankey' himself
jumped up into the rigging of the _Mermaid_ as we started away, and led
a return cheer from the ship as the three of us raced in line abreast
towards the dhows inshore.
The sun was now well up in the sky, and it was blazing hot over our
heads, but I don't think a man of us minded this, as we pulled away,
like Britons, and as lightheartedly as some of us used to do in the old
days when we belonged to the _Saint Vincent_, and were struggling our
best to be the first boat at our summer breaking-up sports so as to win
the Admiralty medal!
But, there was something more than a medal at stake now, aye, or a money
prize either; for we were battling, as we all well knew, mere lads
though most of us were, for our Queen--God bless her!--and that country
whose flag waves over every sea, and on whose dominions, stretching from
east to west all round the globe, the sun never sets!
Nearer and nearer we got into the coast, all hands pulling with a will;
Larrikins, who was stroke, giving the fellows a touch of his old style
when he rowed in the captain's gig of the training-ship; the whaler,
with the middy in command, running us hard, though, and the second
cutter labouring up astern.
As we approached the dhows, however, Mr Dabchick ordered us to pull
easy, singing out to the other boats to spread out to leeward and make
for the batilla, which had remained behind like a watchdog guarding the
smaller craft, while we attacked her in the bows.
The breeze was now dying away, the wind blowing off shore; and the
Somalis, seeing this, triced up their lateen sails, turning round like
rats driven up into a corner and facing us, at bay.
Captain Hankey, who had been pitching shot and shell into them from the
moment of our casting off from the _Mermaid_, some of the missiles
describing beautiful curves over our heads as we pulled in, now ceased
firing, for fear of hitting us as well as the foe; and so, the Arabs
were able to concentrate all their energies towards resisting us, the
batilla sending some round shot in our direction from an old brass
carronade she had mounted on her high forecastle, one of which, skipping
along the water as if it were playing ducks and drakes, shaved off three
of our oar-blades on the starboard side.
This did not stop us, though.
"Shift over, bow and the next man," shouted out Mr Dabchick. "Now, all
together, pull away, my lads, and let us go for them!"
The cheer that we gave on starting away from the _Mermaid_ was nothing
to what our chaps roared out now from their lusty throats; as, making
the water boil with the blades of our oars, we rowed hand over fist
right at the batilla's bows, the second cutter making for her stern
while the whaler, by Mr Dabchick's directions, pulled athwart the hawse
of a smaller dhow that had stayed her flight landwards and was coming
back, apparently, to the assistance of her big consort.
`Crash!' came the stem of our boat against the side of the batilla at
the same time that her old carronade, which had been loaded this time
with bullets and scrap iron like a shell, and having its muzzle
depressed, went off, right in our faces, with a `Bang!'
One of the fellows forward, the bowman on the port side of the cutter,
poor chap, tumbled backward overboard, uttering a wild shriek as he
fell; but otherwise the discharge did not do us much damage, and in
another second we seemed all scrambling up into the dhow and were at it
hammer and tongs.
It was my first fight and I can't forget it.
Every single incident that occurred stands out as clearly before me now
as if I were going over it all again!
We had, of course, all loaded up with ball-cartridge and fixed the
sword-bayonets to our rifles before we got up to the Arabs; and, by the
orders of our commander, we gave them a volley at close quarters as we
boarded.
But, after this, I don't think any one thought of loading or firing
again, save one or two of the fellows astern and the coxswain of the
boat, being too busy guarding the slashes the Somalis made at us with
their long scimitar-like swords that were curved like reaping-hooks, and
the blows they dealt us with their unwieldy matchlocks, which they used
in club fashion.
It was a terrible struggle trying to climb the high overhanging sides of
the batilla in the face of such tooth and nail opposition, the beggars
fighting, as Mr Gresham had said, like veritable wild cats!
We were beaten back into the cutter twice, after some half a dozen of us
had been wounded, some desperately; and then the second cutter, which
could not manage to board her astern, coming up to our help and sheering
in alongside us, our gallant leader Mr Dabchick determined on one grand
final rush.